


It's Quiet Uptown

by EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne



Category: Sharp Zero (Webcomic)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 08:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15905070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne/pseuds/EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne
Summary: This is a songfic of the Kelly Clarkson version of It’s Quiet Uptown. It has the happy ending of everyone reunited in Ouranos.





	It's Quiet Uptown

The final battle with Ceaser and the angels took heavy tolls. Alex, Ace, Elliot, Eli, Tanis, Zipper, and Danny were the only survivors.

Three days later, Steel Coyote finished the job. Ace spent two hours talking his fiance out of dying to get Danny back (because Danny would never forgive Alex for doing it, or Ace for not stopping him).

_ There are moments that the words don't reach _

_ There is suffering too terrible to name, _

 

Alex stood before Danny’s coffin, head bowed, long after everyone but Elliot had left.

The demon grabbed his hand, squeezing gently. Alex squeezed back.

_ I’m not the only one who wished they’d died with him, _ Alex thought.

_ You hold your child as tight as you can _

_ Then push away the unimaginable _

Eli felt the tears drip down his face, staring at a photo of Kim and Isaiah. A mangled heap of silvery metal and broken blue glass sat on his desk, next to a shredded blue hijab. Three words had been going through his head for weeks:  _ I miss them. _

_ The moments when you're in so deep _

_ Feels easier to just swim down _

Tanis sat, head in her hands, as Zipper softly rambled on about Natia and how much he missed her. It helped to hear it, and she didn’t know why.

_ And so they move uptown _

_ And learn to live with the unimaginable _

Elliot got Kate’s house. Madina’s bass and Kate’s drum set sat, pristine in the living room, never to be touched again. Ace came by sometimes. Alex did too.

It helped, knowing that he wasn’t the only one who could barely live without them.

_ I spend hours in the garden _

_ I walk alone to the store _

_ And it's quiet uptown _

_ I never liked the quiet before _

Eli had been so used to noise, to life, that silent mornings were new. It would take some getting used to, not working at Mission Control. He’d resigned.

It was impossible, seeing Isaiah in everything there, and never seeing them when he rounded a corner like he kept thinking he would.

_ I take the children to church on Sunday _

_ A sign of the cross at the door _

_ And I pray _

_ That never used to happen before _

Alex sat in a church, head bowed, tears dripping down his face. He’d never really gotten the concept of praying before.

Now, it was all he could do to stop, even though Danny and Samira would’ve wanted him to.

_ (If you see him in the street, walking by himself _

_ Talking to himself, have pity) _

Zipper kept muttering to himself. Tanis went silent when people didn’t talk to her, never speaking unless someone spoke to her. Whenever someone saw the duo in the halls, Tanis silent and Zipper rambling, they turned around.

Nobody had the heart to disturb them.

_ You would like it uptown, it's quiet uptown _

Ace sat at a table in the Royal Flush, Tiff, Rodney, and Elliot around him.

On Kate and Madina’s birthdays, they came, and sat in silence, because without beats and rythms it was impossible to make music.

_ (He is working through the unimaginable _

_ His hair has gone grey, he passes every day _

_ They say he walks the length of the city) _

Eli walked to a cafe five blocks away from his apartment every morning. It was a ritual now- sometimes, he’d find one of the others sitting there. Tanis was quiet. Zipper rambled. Alex spoke ocassionally, and Elliot had conversations with him. Ace hummed, and Eli was content to listen.

_ You knock me out, I fall apart _

_ (Can you imagine?) _

Elliot never thought, in all his naivety, that he’d really know how it felt to lose everything.

He still didn’t. But he had a pretty good idea of what it was like.

He gave the house to Tiff and Rodney, and moved into the apartment he’d used to share with Marcus.

_ Look at where we are _

_ Look at where we started _

_ I know I don't deserve you _

_ But hear me out, that would be enough _

Ace stood in front of Alex, quietly- so quietly- running on, whispering about why he wanted a wedding, rather than a piece of paper.

Alex gave him a watery smile.

“The bench at the front of my side stays empty. And so does two spots in my wedding party.”

“Why two?”

“Samira.”

Ace smiled back.

“Fair enough.”

_ If I could spare his life _

_ If I could trade his life for mine _

_ He'd be standing here right now _

_ And you would smile, and that would be enough _

It broke Marcus’ heart to see his brother like this, silent, all that energetic jubilance gone. Sasha met his eyes from the kitchen, and they both glanced back at the hunched figure on their couch, because someone had to talk Elliot out of heading back to Ouranous to find the love of his life.

_ I don't pretend to know the challenges we're facing _

_ I know there's no replacing what we've lost _

_ And you need time _

_ But I'm not afraid, I know who I married _

Ace and Alex shared a genuine smile, as they said their vows and set the rings on each other’s fingers.

It would be… okay.

_ Just let me stay here by your side _

_ And that would be enough _

_ (If you see him in the street, walking by her side _

_ Talking by her side, have pity) _

Zipper kept talking Tanis out of moving away. He couldn’t go with her- the government would throw a fit. He probably get killed. She might too.

But he couldn’t lose the only person who knew what it felt like, to have the quiet reassurance of Nadia’s powers gone from the back of their mind.

_ Do you like it uptown? It's quiet uptown _

_ (He is trying to do the unimaginable _

_ See them walking in the park, long after dark) _

_ Taking in the sights of the city. _

Eli gave the cafe a loan when they almost went out of buisness. The only condition was that they hang a single photo, of every Vindicator who lost their lives fighting for the city.

They agreed instantly. The manager never could figure out why, but they knew he’d worked with them all at one point.

_ Look around, look around, look around _

_ (They are trying to do the unimaginable) _

_ There are moments that the words don't reach _

_ There's a grace too powerful to name _

Alex and Ace were thirty when they filled out the last adoption form for the twins they’d requested.

Daniel Kim-Isaiah Samira Becket-Keo, and Kate Madina-Natia Michael Becket-Keo.

Elliot was an uncle for Kate, having elected to let Eli be the uncle for Daniel. Tanis was the godmother for Kate, and Zipper had said yes when they asked him to be Daniel’s godparent.

The twins’ first birthday with their little family, of two parents and two not-blood uncles, and their godaparents, was small.

They loved it.

_ We push away what we can never understand _

_ We push away the unimaginable _

_ They are standing in the garden _

_ Standing there side by side _

The family of eight stayed that way. The twins, when they turned fifteen, were told, by Eli and Elliot, who they were named for, and why.

They nodded solemmly, and on their parents’ anniversary, took them to the cafe Eli always went to in the mornings, nodding to the photos on the wall who’s faces they knew.

Alex and Ace almost cried.

_ She takes his hand _

_ It's quiet uptown _

_ Forgiveness, can you imagine? _

_ Forgiveness, can you imagine? _

Zipper and Tanis moved in next to Alex and Ace, who were across from Elliot. Eli wasn’t far behind, taking the apartment across from the two friends. Daniel and Kate were happy their uncle and their godparents would be so close now, even though they went to college next year.

_ (If you see him in the street, walking by her side _

_ Talking by her side, have pity) _

_ Look around, look around _

_ They are going through the unimaginable. _

 

Daniel and Kate stood before the six gravestones. Eli had died at eighty one, Zipper lost in a firefight, Tanis at ninety, and Alex and Ace in a car accident.

The last one was empty, Elliot having simply elected to return to Ouranous and rejoin his friends.

The twins saw him off, ready to live with memories and the promise of seeing them again.

 

Eli had woken up to the faces of Kim and Isaiah. Alex and Ace opened their eyes to meet the ones of Kate, Madina, Samira, and Danny. Tanis and Zipper woke up to see Nadia.

Elliot arrived to quite the fanfare (and if he went back, from time to time, to keep an eye on the Becket-Keo descendants, and if the others sometimes went with him… well. The Witchmother never said a word).


End file.
